Near Misses and Total Hits
by BasementOfTheMansion
Summary: A whole lotta banter, a couple internal monologues, and maybe even a genuine moment or two. And did I mention some good old fashioned dysfunction? Yep, sounds like another D/S drabble collection. Note that new "complete" status.
1. I

_So, I think just about everyone's heard of and done the D/S iPod shuffle challenge. Old news. So naturally, I'm gonna hop in and put my effort forth, too late and anticipated by no one! These are handpicked and edited in blatent disregard of the rules of the challenge, but this is an EVIL drabble collection, folks. I don't gotta follow the rules. Songs and artists are credited at the end of each drabble, and none of them follow much continuity at all._

* * *

"YOU THINK YOU'RE ALL THAT, KIM POSSIBLE, BUT YOU'RE NOT!" Dr. Drakken howled over the explosion of his lair, fist raised dramatically in the air, patches of burnt lab coat smoking in the breeze.

When the explosion finally died down and his teen nemesis was nothing more than a thinning trail of dust in the distance, he collapsed petulantly into a sitting position on the ground, head bowed and shoulders hunched in a portrait of misery.

In the silence, a slow, sarcastic clapping resounded. "Very nice. Excellent ruing. You do realized she probably didn't hear you, right?"

He glared over his shoulder at his approaching sidekick, who managed to look perfect beneath an obligatory smudge of soot or two, then returned to his pouting.

"Silent treatment, huh? I could get used to this. I gotta say, though, self-pity looks even worse on you than deranged ranting."

"Why do you always have to kick a mad scientist when he's down, Shego?"

She nudged him with a green boot. "You're such a girl, Dr. D," she scoffed. "Suck it up already."

He returned to ignoring her. After about half a minute, she got impatient. "Hey!"

Laboriously, he lifted his head to find her holding out a hand. "This isn't some kind of endurance test for my arm, you know," she said peevishly.

Snapping out of it, he grabbed her hand before she could change her mind and scrambled to his feet.

"Next time, right?" she said brusquely as they started off.

Dr. D looked ahead into the waning sunlight. "Definitely."

* * *

_"Bent" - Matchbox Twenty_


	2. II

The thing she kept waiting for was the pang of guilt.

Five heists, nineteen robberies, eleven traffic tickets and six jailbreaks later, she stopped expecting it.

She'd found her calling at last, and thank god it wasn't in teaching. She'd even managed to set up a mutually beneficial partnership, to boot.

Sure, he was a nutcase--

"Shego! Get your things! There are evil deeds to be done!"

But, oh, he had his moments.

* * *

_"When You're Evil" - Voltaire_


	3. III

The day after the Moodulator incident was a whole fresh hell of awkweird.

"Just so you know... I was mind-controlled, so that... all that... Meant _nothing_ at all."

"Yes, yes. Of course."

"Just don't go getting any ideas or anything.'

"Excuse me? Why would _I_ be getting ideas? I was the one who got attacked in all this!"

"Well, I'm creeped out enough as it is without considering what's going on in your twisted mind. Ugh, I hate mind-control!"

"Behavior modification, not mind-control," he muttered.

"And the difference is...?" She prompted in a low, dangerous voice.

"...Er, only nominal," he assured her after a moment's panic.

"Right."

"So... um... I'm sure I have some plan around here," he said quickly, shuffling nervously through some papers.

"Good. I think I'm in the mood to wreak some havoc."

* * *

_"Feign Amnesia" - They Might Be Giants_


	4. IV

In the insanity of the invasion, Drakken had no time to consider the more subtle anomalies of the situation, what with the whole apocalypse thing and the hot, all-consuming blossoming of a plan in his mind burning away extraneous considerations.

But as they raced around, fitting everything together, sometimes he'd catch Shego with a soft, uncertain expression that looked ill-fitted to her face.

And she kept his stupid self safe with the tenacity of a bodyguard and let him do his genius thing with only a quick obligatory quip or two, just to keep her hand in the game.

That was why it had to work, why he had to save the... you know. Things couldn't just end now, not when they were finally starting to get good!

* * *

_"As The World Falls Down" - David Bowie_


	5. V

Shego stared out the grimy window of the bus. Some dramatic exit. Villains got explosions and desperate escapes on, oh, hovercars or whatever. Heroes bought a damn bus ticket.

Other than that, she saw no difference in the sides anymore. It was just one huge stalemate. Attack, counterattack in an infinite cycle.

She could still just about hear the yammering in the classroom echoing around her head. No. She wouldn't do the mild-mannered secret identity thing. Not on your life.

So she was defecting. If it was all just a farce, a large-scale game of cops-and-robbers, she'd rather be on the side that had fun and--while inherently flawed and doomed to entropy--was at least smart enough to have fancy lairs on tropical islands.

* * *

_"Different Names For The Same Thing" - Death Cab For Cutie_


	6. VI

Shego lounged on the couch. It was practically a crime, the way it'd been pouring down outside for days. The middle of summer, and suddenly a monsoon. God.

"Hey, Doc, why don't you cook up a weather way or something useful?" she called across the room.

"Are you going to steal the parts?" he countered sleepily from his chair, a half-read issue of a scientific journal flopped over the upholstered arm.

"Tch. Yeah, right." She shifted onto her side, hugging one of the throw pillows. It was too humid to move, and the patter of raindrops on the roof suffused the atmosphere with soft white noise.

Drakken's journal finally dropped to the floor with a dull slap, unheeded by both of them. Shego closed her eyes, just for a second, just because they felt so heavy.

* * *

_"The Importance Of Being Idle" - Oasis_


	7. VII

When the power went out in half of Paris... That was a good date.

When the infamous Optimism Diamond mysteriously went missing... That was a fun anniversary.

When a chain reaction of malfunctioning satellites sent debris hurtling into the atmosphere to incinerate and fill the sky with shooting stars... That was really one hell of a proposal.

The honeymoon jailbreak was less enjoyable, but what the heck... It was tradition.

* * *

_"Strangelove" - Depeche Mode_


	8. VIII

Drakken kicked futilely at a chunk of rubble, which dislodged a mini-avalanche of crumbled stone and metal, making him scramble backwards. "Another lair gone!"

"What have I been telling you about the computerized countdown?" Shego piped up in annoyance. "That's always when the heroes miraculously pull it out of the bag. But no, Mister Traditional Villainy has to have it for 'dramatic effect!'" Her fingers scythed into vicious air quotes. "Next thing you know, you'll be back to leaving your nemesis in an Rube Goldberg deathtrap in an unguarded room!"

"Give me some credit, Shego; I haven't done that in over a year! And why don't you ever point that kind of thing out when it would be useful, like when I'm planning things?!"

"It's more fun this way," Shego said with a smirk, twisting thumbs thumbscrews into her boss's nerves. "Besides, you never listen to me mid-plan. You're so full of yourself, I'm surprised you don't collapse into a black hole."

"That's uncalled for!"

A trail of bickering followed their decent from the demolished cliff.

* * *

_"Only Happy When It Rains" - Garbage_

MISS GO SAYS: A Rube Goldberg device is an overly complicated construct that does an ultimately simple task. You tend to see them in 'eighties movies, making breakfast. Now don't say I never taught you anything, ya little brats.


	9. IX

There was, Shego had learned, a very great difference between being able to get any man you wished and being able to keep any man at all. Seduction, courting, flirting, dating... Those were easy. Thoughtless.

Actually dealing with another person lodged in her life, having to be considerate and giving in stupid little ways like going places _they_ wanted to go and dealing with their annoying relatives and remembering to say supportive things every once in a blue moon; that she couldn't do at all.

Except in one case.

Not to mention that once she dropped the femme fatale façade and reverted to her lazy, preening, hair-triggered, secretly insecure smart alec self, men tended to clear out of her life faster than the population of England during the bubonic plague.

Except in one case.

Then again, one case was all you really needed.

* * *

_"Bachelorette" - Bjork_


	10. X

"Rrgh, Shego, one of these days--!"

"What? I really hope you're gonna say 'I'm actually going to think of a plan that isn't totally contrived and flawed.'"

"Always with... the lip! Would it kill you to be helpful for one second of your life?"

"That's not really a risk I wanna take."

"This is why we haven't taken over the world yet, Shego! Lack of _team effort_!"

"Really? 'Cause I was leaning more towards you coming up with plans like 'disrupt traffic signals to create permanent gridlock and seize control in the chaos.'"

"...When you say it that way, it just sounds... ugh..."

"Back to the drawing board, Doc. And maybe for future ref, you might wanna try decaf. You look like you're gonna burst a blood vessel."

"De... caf? Of course; it's so obvious!"

"Well, yeah."

"No! If you want to rule the world, you have to control the one invaluable commodity--caffeine! That's it!"

"...You never stop, do you?"

"Not until the world is mine!"

"..._can't believe I'm stuck with this guy..."_

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing."

* * *

_"Foundations" - Kate Nash_

And that's it for now, kiddies. I'm leaving this collection open for the possiblity of more, but not until I've finished some other projects that have been knocking around my head. As always, you can check my profile for obsessively frequent updates and forcasts about what I'm going to be doing next and why. (And usually some sort of author's notes as well, if you're interested in that kind of thing.) Hope you all had as much fun reading these as I did writing them.


	11. XI

After the Lorwardian invasion, things were just... off.

Evil-wise.

Shego flipped through some sheets of formulas with nonplussed indifference. "Still the plant stuff, huh?" She shuffled the mess into a neat pile. "You know, I've never seen you stick with something this long. Other than the creepy girl robots."

"Well, if it works..." Drakken said idly, watching her destroy his organization system. "Besides, you could say I've been inspired as of late." As if summoned by the reference, a vine crept out of his collar. He gave it a stern look and it retreated.

"Yeah, but it's not exactly deathrays and destruction, is it? You know, if you put us on the straight and narrow, I'm pretty much going to resent you for the rest of our lives."

"Well, there are still morally gray areas to explore... Just because I'm putting the world domination project on hiatus doesn't mean I've turned into a Pixie scout," he ranted automatically. Then his brain actually processed what she'd said.

Us? Our lives?

"You'd stay? Even if I did take us legit?" he questioned before the next logical step of shutting up and taking the compliment presented itself.

Shego looked briefly shocked and did a similar mental rewind. then she forced a flippant grin.

"Well, why not? I've been on the bandwagon all these years. Why jump off now?"

* * *

_No song this time. Just an idea that's been knocking around the ol' noggin for way too long. Not exactly original, but eh, nothing new under the sun, right? I purposefully let this one come across as more low-key than I would generally write Drakken and Shego. It's kind of an homage to Maslow._


	12. XII

Two battered figures, one blue and one green, lay stretched out on the ground. Behind them, the rubble of a collapsed building lay in heaps, little chunks of stone skittering down from time to time as it settled.

"Ow," Drakken said in a flat, dry tone.

"I second that," Shego groaned.

They lay in silence for awhile, looking up at the sky.

"...Huh," Shego said to herself.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You used your little 'I think something's funny' tone. What is it?"

"That cloud up there... I dunno... It kind of looks like a rabbit."

"...Did you hit your head, Shego?" Drakken asked gently.

"I'm allowed to notice what shape clouds are," she sniffed defensively.

There was a contemplative pause.

"I was thinking 'antelope' myself," he said eventually.

She laughed, short and sharp. "Are you kidding? How could you even think that?"

"Right there are the horns... And the legs..."

"It's clearly a rabbit," she insisted. "You're the one who must've hit your head."

"It's way too skinny to be a rabbit!"

"Well, its legs are too stubby to be an antelope!"

Somewhere in the atmosphere, winds shifted, painting a whole new scene.

* * *

_Prompt - "collapse"_


	13. XIII

Summer was a wretched season.

Drakken grimaced as he fiddled with the half-eviscerated wires in the deathray de jour. It was too hot to be doing this. It was too hot to be doing anything, but he felt restless and frustrated for some reason that was eluding him and he had to channel it into something.

Red to yellow... Or was it red to orange? Rrgh...

He untangled himself, casting about for the manual. "Shego! Where's the--"

His sidekick slunk around the bulky machine, clad in a swimsuit. His volume faded.

"...um, manual...?"

She rolled her eyes and pointed to the control panel where it lay splayed open. "I'm heading outside," she informed him. "It's actually nice out for once. If you need anything... Please, hesitate to ask." She pulled a pair of sunglasses down from where they were perched on the top of her head and walked off.

"I'm not paying you to sunbathe," he grumbled, knowing she was already out of range and wouldn't listen anyway. He stomped over to get his book, tugging surreptitiously at his collar.

Stupid... heat. Suddenly his tight lab coat felt altogether too constricting.

* * *

_Prompt - "constrict"_


	14. XIV

"How can you possibly be devoted to this?" Shego asked with open distain. "It's riddled with contradictions and plot holes! I mean, geez, you're a scientist; you know most of this stuff is downright impossible!"

"It's a matter of faith," Drakken said distracted. "Now quiet! This is a really good episode."

"More like a matter of blind nostalgia," she muttered, glaring sullenly at the big screen where Captain Constellation played in all its retro glory. "And the costumes are so cheesy!"

"You don't have to watch it," he snapped, torn between fanboyish indignation and involvement in the plot.

"The volume's too loud. I hear it through the whole lair, anyway." She paused to snicker at the hopelessly outdated laser effects. "And... The Romuleks are kind of cool. In a really, really dorky way."

"Wait 'til you see the season finale!"

She sighed. "I used to have a social life," she lamented under her breath. "What happened to it?"

* * *

_Prompt - "blasphemy"_

_Since Space Passage is the Star Trek analog, I'm assuming CC is more like classic Flash Gordon or Doctor Who. Daleks (Dr. Who) + Romulans (Star Trek) = Romuleks. Hey, I write fanfiction... Obviously, I'm not that origonal._


	15. XV

Shego sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. "I have a bad feeling about this, Dr. D..."

"That's what you say every time."

"And, gee, every time I'm right. Wonder if there could possibly be a correlation there?"

"Hush, Shego, I'm concentrating."

"Here we go...'

"I said hush!"

He pored over the list, eventually lighting upon a choice. "I've got it! This one!" he crowed, pointing at the page.

Cringing, Shego followed his finger and read the item. "Not another Oh Boyz song," she lamented. "Seriously, get some taste already!"

Dr. Drakken shut the karaoke binder with a snap. "You just don't appreciate the depth of their lyrics," he scoffed, getting up to take the book back to the DJ.

"Depth? How deep can a song called 'The Shape of My Love' possibly be?" she called after him with sarcasm that bordered on desperation.

Then she buried her face in her hands. Stupid, stupid Friday night...

* * *

_Prompt - "misgivings"_

_For the record: "Shape of My Heart" by the Baskstreet Boys. But I'm guessing you guys already got that one._


	16. XVI

"Cursed machine!" Dr. D ranted, slamming a fist down on the plastic casing. Shockingly, this did not fix the error. "Again? This is intolerable!"

Shego sashayed up behind him. "What's the meltdown about now?"

"It froze again," he hissed, glaring accusingly at the computer and clicking the mouse futilely.

"Here's a thought... Why don't you restart it and _not_ have a conniption fit?" She reached over and jabbed the on/off switch twice. "There. Problem solved."

"It's shoddy craftsmanship, is what it is. I'm surprised these computer companies aren't more involved in world domination... They've already got the market cornered on _pure evil_," he complained as it rebooted.

Shego snorted, eyes on the screen. "Uh... Doc?"

"What?"

"You're pretty good with the tech stuff and all..."

"Yes, and?"

"Why are you using Portals? I mean... Are you kidding me? Even _I_ know that's the junkiest system out there."

He made a face. "Every other week, my whole setup gets blown sky-high... It was short notice. I had to make do."

"Well. It's back up. Try to be smarter than what you're working with, huh?"

"Can the comments, Shego, I've got research to do."

"Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"Shut it!"

* * *

_Prompt - "restart"_

_"Portals" is a parody of "Windows" from Danny Phantom. As someone who uses Windows ME, I feel entitled to hates the Gates sometimes._


	17. XVII

Wide picture windows in the upper levels of the lair offered a panoramic view off the cliff on which the building was precariously perched. The ocean below seethed and churned, heaving mighty waves against the natural stone wall. Lightning forked restlessly across the bellies of the low drifts of black clouds.

A lone figure, silhouetted against the glass, observed the chaos of nature.

"It's not fair!" Drakken whined. "This is the perfect night for completing an evil scheme, but I'm still planning mine! All this dramatic weather is totally wasted!"

"So stop complaining and get back to work," his sidekick suggested none-too-delicately.

"Oh, you wouldn't understand. You've got no sense of timing..."

"Trust me, Dr, D, you don't need a storm. You could take a sunny day at the park and make it all about the drama," she told him whilst leafing through a magazine.

He beamed. "Why, Shego, I'm touched..."

"Hm? Oh, you thought that was a compliment?" She chuckled briefly. "I was thinking more literally. Remember last year's company picnic?"

"For the last time, I don't want to talk about that!"

"Why don't you do us both a favor and go back to the drawing board, Doc."

"Ugh, fine." Thunder boomed in the distance. He scowled at the storm before turning away. What a waste...

* * *

_Prompt - "maelstrom"_


	18. XVIII

"Done yet?" Shego asked, bored impatience thick in her voice.

"...Five more minutes."

"Hm. Deja vu... Wonder where I've heard that before? Oh, yeah, ten minutes ago when you said the exact same thing."

"I'm almost finished, Shego... Just hold on a little," Drakken insisted irritably without looking up from the blueprint he was constructing.

"If you think I'm gonna wait around off the clock for hours while you finish that, you are sorely mistaken."

Silence.

"Oh, you have _gotta_ be kidding me!" she seethed. "If you pick mad science over me, I swear I'm gonna--"

"I didn't say that! Or anything! I was trying to concentrate so I can get this done!" He frowned at the page and erased furiously. "And now you made me mess up..."

She leaned over and plucked the eraser out of his hand. His head snapped up, eyes seething with indignation. Then he caught sight of her gaze and stopped, not really sure what to feel.

"How about you give _me_ five minutes, and we'll see how it goes from there?"

Hard to argue there.

In fact he could stand to lose a few more arguments if they were going to end like this.

* * *

_Prompt - "five minutes"_


	19. XIX

Shego's glowing hands arced down only to be caught at the wrists by Kim Possible. "You just couldn't rest on your laurels, could you?" he teen asked in her perky, sarcastic way.

The villainess's knee arced up, hitting Kim squarely. "Oh, I'm just killing time 'til the loan on the suburban house with the white picket fence goes through," she said as the heroine reeled.

Kim bounced back quickly. "You know, I've got enough to deal with in college without throwing your half-baked schemes on the pile," she commented, swinging a roundhouse kick.

Shego ducked and flipped backwards. "Hey, no one invited you, Princess," she sneered as she unleashed a flurry of concussive blasts. Kim dodged and weaved, driven backwards by the onslaught. "Now!" Shego called.

"Wha--?" But before the heroine could turn and react, she found herself bound up in vines.

"See! Told you it would work!" Drakken crowed, arms crossed as his botanical appendages held his foe aloft and helpless.

"Gotta give you props, Dr. D; it did. And now we've got Kimmie right where we want her."

Kim merely smirked, unperturbed by her capture. "Oh, I wouldn't get too cocky, you two. You may have won the battle..."

"But you won't win the war! Booyah!" Ron Stoppable crashed onto the scene, shifting into a martial pose as his battle aura glimmered blue.

"This won't end well, will it?" Drakken asked meekly.

"Doesn't look like it," Shego replied uneasily, right before they were proven right.

* * *

_Prompt - "dustup"_


	20. XX

"Hurry, Shego, before someone catches us!"

"You saying that? So not helping. And you're the mad scientist here; why aren't you hotwiring the car?"

"Who do I look like? Eddie? Besides, you said you could do it."

"I can and I did," she gloated as the engine roared and purred. "Now let's jet."

She peeled out.

"So where'd you learn how to do that, anyway?"

She laughed. "I was a bad kid. You pick up certain skills pretty fast."

"I thought you were a hero when you were a kid?"

Shrug. "Made it easier to get away with the bad stuff. You, on the other hand... I'd bet you never even shoplifted when you were younger."

"But you'd be wrong," he countered gleefully.

"Oh?"

"How else do you think I built robots in college?"

"Touché," she admitted, grinning with amusement and a couple ounces of respect.

"See? I have street cred."

"Uh, do me a favor and never use that phrase again, 'kay?"

"Why not?"

She pressed the gas pedal to the floor as sirens howled in the distance. "And they said crime didn't pay," she mused under her breath.

* * *

_Prompt - "miscreant"_


	21. XXI

At first, he assumed she lived to insult the world.

"_Oh, wow, another laser. Third this month. Really pushing the evil envelope there, Doc."_

Then he decided that she must just loved torturing _him_ and robbing him of small victories.

"_Hah! Are you serious? Robot girls? Oh, the world will tremble before your repressed nerdy teenage fantasies!"_

Every so often, though he'd notice that she was, in an oblique and Shegoish way, contributing. Sort of.

"_And whaddya know? The oh-so-necessary monologue has given our foes time to escape! Big surprise there."_

Talking to her, like scheming for world domination, was a game he couldn't seem to win.

"_Don't quote me on this or anything, but... This might just actually work..."_

Sometimes, though, he got pretty darn close.

* * *

_Prompt - "conversation"_


	22. XXII

"Gee, do you think you got enough warning signs?" Shego asked with a little more acid than was usual even for her. As much as she liked the Caribbean sun, she wasn't much for standing around under its full glare clothed in he full, clingy jumpsuit and holding an armload of wooden signs.

Drakken finished pounding a "Danger!!" sign into the rocky soil and motioned for another one, which she tossed to him. "Better overkill than... underkill," he said with slightly manic cheerfulness. "Besides, the last thing we need is some schmuck stumbling onto out secret lair and exposing us."

"And the freaky building on the cliff surrounded by eighty million warning signs isn't suspicious at _all_," she muttered darkly.

"Another one!" he called. She lifted one out of the bunch. Then she caught sight of what it said. "_Haunted?_ Are you kidding me?"

"I value my privacy, Shego," he said stiffly.

"You should value your sanity," she grumbled, tossing it over. "The few, forlorn scraps of it you have left."

"Are you going to be like this all day?" he asked with a particularly vindictive swing of the hammer.

"Yes," she replied obtusely, picking her way further up the rocky foothills.

_

* * *

_

_Prompt - "phantasmagoria"_

_I know this isn't anything close to what the word means, but it was seriously late when I wrote this and for some reason, I thought of the "Haunted" signs in the Caribbean lair. Oh, the unpredictable joys of the creatice process._


	23. XXIII

Shego absently brushed off her uniform as Hego carted Avarious off to the waiting police car, mugging to the news cameras as he went. She suppressed the urge to gag.

As she waited for the hubbub to die down, she kicked around the half-destroyed lair. Stared contemplatively at the larger super weapons. Swiped a few small gadgets and stowed them in her pouch.

Hey, it wasn't stealing if you nicked stuff from the bad guys.

She unearthed a magazine. Ah, nothing better to pass the time than some glossy-paged light entertainment. Though, knowing Ave, it was probably Bird Fancy or something equally stupid.

...Nope. A villain magazine. Cool.

She leafed through it. _Top Ten Laser Cannons, Perfecting Your Evil Monologue, Threatening Government: Get Them To Pay Big Time!_ She snickered to herself.

Then she got to the classifieds.

Fate rolled the dice and got a hit.

* * *

_Prompt - "lottery"_


	24. XXIV

An explosion rocked the night, mushrooming out of the mountaintop lair. Down it fell into the rocky chasm below, so much stone and metal and expensive rubble.

Two villains watched the collapse from a hovercar.

"Bwahahaha! This is _much_ funnier when it happens to someone else!" Dr. Drakken laughed manically.

"Aren't you going just a _little_ too far to get back at Dementor?" Shego asked dryly.

"All I did was call in an anonymous tip that just happened to have the exact coordinates of his lair."

"That's what I mean. Calling the heroes in on another villain? That's low."

"No honor among thieves, Shego. Besides, it serves him right for getting a lair three mountains away from mine. I was here _first_!"

"Whatever. Shouldn't we be getting back to our own nefarious deeds?"

"Yes, yes, in a moment. I'm savoring the feeling of victory."

* * *

_Prompt - "down it fell"_


	25. XXV

They stood on the roof, the hazy July breeze gently stirring the night around them.

"Well, on nice thing about this ridiculously impractical clifftop lair is the view," Shego reflected. It was simply too nice out to be very sarcastic, though. Fireworks bloomed in the distance and she watched them sparkle and fade.

Drakken noticed her observing the displays and scoffed. "Hah, that stuff's just sparklers compared to what I've got planned!" he commented as he fiddled with his pyrotechnic gear.

"Why do you think I've got the burn ward on speed dial?" she answered rhetorically.

Still, as the first shower of blue sparks cascaded down in a weeping willow formation, she had to admit he was right. Not necessarily out loud, but she had to admit it.

"Narcissist much?" she called over the roar.

He just smirked derisively. Green fire splashed across the sky in starbursts next.

"Now you're just being cheesy!" But a grin was plastered across her face as she said it.

* * *

_Prompt - "July"_


	26. XXVI

_This collection has been on hiatus forever, I know. I've just lost the D/S bug. It may randomly return someday, but as for now, I've other things to be getting on with. On the plus side, I do have one more drabble, then I'm finally closing this monster down. Mild hinted adult content, so avert your eyes if that bothers you._

* * *

There are certain things she always remembers from that first time, little sensations that stay vivid against the haze of time-blurred recollection.

The knots of half-healed scar tissue under her fingers, the sudden blend from skin to plant fiber.

The warmth of his hands on her, hesitant and intrusive.

The look on his face as she teased him lightly for his nervousness, somewhere between indignant and relieved.

The brush of vines on her skin, the smell of flowers.

But mostly she remembers the feeling of surrender, being adrift on the ocean of causality. Helplessness. Vulnerability.

Trust.

She remembers laughing afterwards as they lay together, but she can't remember who made the joke, or even what it was.

* * *

_Prompt - "vivid"_


End file.
